> "Oh shit we did it all in Webkit and Gecko features - The growing 20% of Windows tablet market doesn't support it - we're going to have to rewrite or ship an app both of which are costly".
If Windows tablets take off (and that still seems like rather a big if), you'd hope they have a vaguely compatible browser.
Vaguely compatible doesn't help if the site is deliberately locking out browsers that look like the current crop of Internet Explorer browsers.
Doesn't look like that they are User-Agent sniffing, so that means that maybe they are detecting features. That's kinda the right way of doing it - except for their failure to adhere to progressive enhancement best practices.
But feature detection isn't "No Internet Explorer support here" approach. So the story seems at odds with the actual behaviour of their site.
Now what happens when an Internet Explorer - either on the desktop or tablet, or phone, passes the feature detection in place on this site? You don't get the "Go Away!" message, but instead you get an insufficiently tested experience which exposes the lack of attention on quality - that's something that's going to turn away an audience geared to wanting to see quality.
If you are going to publicly stop supporting an entire browser range, make sure your developers don't leave obvious gaps in that non-support. Maybe here's one place where User-Agent sniffing actually complements the actual requirement.
If Windows tablets take off (and that still seems like rather a big if), you'd hope they have a vaguely compatible browser.